The Calling
by NanbeiNoHana
Summary: She wasn't one to believe in clairvoyance or any supernatural or mystic bullshit, but she was starting to get disturbed. And really pissed off.


**A/N:** Trying something different here. Or not so different, if you have ever read any of my other fics.

**Disclaimer:** I won the lottery, bought all Naruto rights, and I'm starting right now to reshape the story: Neji is alive and well, Itachi never had to do what he did, Sasuke is bullied by Naruto and Sakura, and all the hot guys are shirtless. Enjoy S2

* * *

**The Calling**

**Chapter 1 - The flower**

Time passes, life keeps its flow, you move on. That was one thing Haruno Sakura learned the hard but true way. Either you adapt or you lose your mind. For lack of a better option, she always chose to stay alive and, when possible, well. There were times when she was truly surprised with her own resilience. She was now a veteran of two Shinobi World Wars and lost more dear friends than one was supposed to in such short time, but she survived. Always had, (hopefully) always will. In a slow but steady rhythm, life was, once more, somewhat getting back to normal – as normal as it could be, that is, given all the things that would never again be what they once were.

"Sakura-chaaaaaaaaaan!"

Of course, there were the things that would never change. In what seemed a different lifetime, a young and fool Sakura would flinch to the sound of that overly cheerful voice. Now she only quietly (and genuinely) smiled, very thankful for his reassuring presence. That idiot being alive was a miracle by itself – a miracle she was very grateful for. She wasn't sure she would recover from the loss of him.

"Good morning, Naruto." Despite her old forgotten self, she hugged him tight, even in the middle of the busy streets of Konoha. She was lucky she hadn't had to lose him to see how precious he was to her. "Going somewhere?"

He grinned, as if he'd never had anything bad happen to him ever. "Actually, no, I was just wandering around. But if you want to treat me to lunch..." His boyish smile made her heart flutter. Not in a romantic way, but she really, deeply, unconditionally loved the blonde in front of her. How he was so quick to mend was beyond her.

"All right, all right. Only if I choose where we're eating. And, today, I feel like eating ikayaki." He pouted. "Don't make that face. I don't want ramen again." He looked at her with puppy eyes. "You are not tricking me this time, Naruto!"

After leaving the Ichiraku ramen stall – because he would _always_ convince her – he sighed, losing his cheerful demeanor for a bit. Sakura knew what it meant; even if he would never ask, she would always know. "Of course I'm going with you, baka." Together they walked in companionable silence until they reached their destination. A place where no one would visit anymore. A place of remembrance, but mostly a place of pain and sorrow.

The Memorial Stone.

When it was first erected, the large stone slab was to be filled with Konoha's heros' names chronologically. The last two Shinobi World Wars – Fourth and Fifth – made that impossible, given the huge amount of casualities and the impossibility of knowing exactly when every single of them perished. So, the new names had been written without any apparent order, making it a little hard to find a name one would be looking for.

Sakura didn't have that problem, though, even if it's been a longe time since she last went there. Her eyes still knew where to look for the right names. Her heart sunk more and more as her jade orbs recognized everyone she knew and didn't exist anymore. She had to stifle a sob, though, when she saw her parents' names, who died while protecting the civilians in the Fifht War. Naruto put a hand on her shoulder and she nodded, thankful for his presence.

"Sakura-chan, I have to go now. Duty calls, and I've been procrastinating enough."

She nodded again, aware that this was the way he dealt with loss – Naruto would never choose work over anything, unless it was something he wanted to avoid. Which was the case. "Sure, go ahead. I'll be on my way soon. I still want to talk to my parents a bit." He kissed her cheek and left.

But that wasn't the only reason that made her stay. _Something_ was compelling her to linger there, although she wasn't quite sure what it was. It felt as if she were waiting for something to happen, or for someone who was to meet her there. Almost like she was just waiting for her parents to arrive home so they would all go out to a special dinner. That was the kind of anxiety she was feeling. But, since nothing happened and no one came, the pink-haired medic just sighed and turned around to leave.

It was when a strong gust of wind blew, making something hit her face. It'd been subtle and soft, but she felt it nevertheless. Turning around again, she saw a small white spot against the black surface of the Stone. Coming closer to inspect it, the woman saw it was a petal. A strange petal from a flower she'd never seen before. Without thinking, she took the petal and decided to ask for Ino's help – if anyone would recognize the flower, it would be her friend.

Focused on the petal itself, it never crossed Sakura's mind to look at _where_ the petal had landed.

* * *

"Well, Forehead, are you _sure_ you found this on Memorial Stone?" Ino asked, looking at the petal through magnifying glasses.

"Yes, Ino-buta-chan. Why?"

"Mmm... Not sure yet. Mom?" The blonde raised her voice, calling her mother from the flower shop. "Mom, we need your help here."

The Yamanaka widow entered the back room. "What is it, Ino? Oh, hello there, Sakura-chan! What can I do for you girls?"

"Yamanaka-san," Sakura started, "I found this petal earlier today on Memorial Stone, but neither Ino nor I can identify to which flower it belongs."

"Hey! I'm pretty sure I know which flower this is, but I just need to double-check", Ino protested, while her mother inspected the petal. "See, mom? The petal belongs to the-"

"Rishuu flower" both the blondes said in unison. "But this can't be," Ino's mother added.

"And why is that?" the pinkette raised a questioning eyebrow.

"The rishuu plant grows in the mountains, where the weather is cool and atmospheric pressure low, but the flowers only blossom when it snows. So, do you see the petal? It's fresh, as if it's just been plucked from the flower. However, since it can't grow anywhere near our country, I highly doubt the wind has brought it here."

"What if someone is raising them? In a greenhouse, or a fridge?" Sakura offered.

"It's not the case. Mother's been trying to raise rishuu flowers since forever but never succeeded, and if she can't do it, so it can't be done at all." Ino sighed. "We've tried everything: jutsus, machines, hypobaric chambers, genetic engineering, praying, everything."

"Basically, you have a mystery in your hands, Sakura-chan. I suggest you keep this petal. After all, Mother Nature chose to give this gift to you, so you should feel blessed and grateful" the older woman smiled. "I have to get back to the store. Bye, girls!"

"I have to go as well, Ino," Sakura said, getting up from her chair. "I still have an armload of paperwork to fill for the Rokudaime."

"Really, Forehead, why in the world you let yourself be talked into doing _his_ job?"

The woman only shrugged.

* * *

There was a small window of time, in the dead of the night, when there was absolute silence. The night animals had just fallen asleep, the day animals had not awoken yet, and even the noctivagous (and the drunkards) were quiet. Not a single breezed blowed, even though the night was pleasantly tepid. It was in the middle of that silence that Sakura heard faint whispers and woke up with a start. Her room was noiseless, as was the rest of the village, but she couldn't dismiss what she'd just heard. She had since long learned to know her dreams from reality. And the whispers _had been_ real. The minutes passed, turned into hours, the first early birds started to chirp merrily, but that noise was not heard again. Restless in her bed, Sakura got up and changed into a navy blue tank top and a pair of gray sweatpants. A run was all she needed to clear her mind from the growing anxiety that came out of nowhere, making her feel she was anticipating something she couldn't identify.

* * *

The run did little to calm her state of mind. During her shift in the hospital, the anxiety seemed to grow even more, making Sakura look around constantly, sigh unstoppably, and tug at her hair in distress. It didn't go unnoticed.

"Sakura, what is it you have today? You're all skittish and frustrated."

She sighed, again. "I don't know, shishou."

"You don't?" Tsunade asked. "So could you please stop it? It's highly disturbing."

"I'm sorry. I really don't know what's happening to me. I have this weight in my heart, this urgent feeling, and I can't shake this... whatever it is." She pondered if she should tell her former master what happened during the night. Yes. "It's just that... I woke up hearing some whispers, and I know they were real – don't look at me like that, I can tell the difference! You taught me yourself. I scanned my apartment, I waited for the sound again, but all I got was this bad feeling."

The retired Godaime Hokage tapped her chin lightly. "It could be a poltergeist."

Sakura glared. "Shishou! Don't make fun of me."

* * *

The hours dragged, each minute stretched for months, but the day was finally over. Sakura actually felt a lot better as soon as she set foot inside her tiny apartment, her anxiety fading to a dull throb in her chest. Kicking off her shoes, she made a bee line to her bathroom, where her ofuro would be warm, soothing, scented, and waiting for her.

For a blissful half an hour, she was able to forget the stressful day she had, letting hear weariness dissolve into the water. She was seriously considering staying there for the night, but her pruney fingers made her get out of the ofuro. Wrapping herself in a fluffly bathrobe, she made her way to her bedroom. Whithout turning the light on, she noticed the pale moonlight through her window illumine something on her bedside table. The petal. She'd all but forgotten about it during the day, but there it was, as fresh as the day before. _Maybe Ino's mother is right_, she thought, _it could as well be a gift from Mother Nature_. The touch of that smooth surface on her fingertips did relieve what was left of the day's tension. Sakura laid her head on her pillows and brought the petal to her nose, letting its subtle but noticeable scent fill her nostrils.

She only noticed she'd fallen asleep when she woke up from a dream. Except that it hadn't been a dream at all – it was a memory. But a memory she couldn't place in time. It depicted a small garden, neatly arranged in Hi no Kuni's traditional style, with a tiny koi pond and, almost hidden inside a diminute stone shrine, a plant full of flowers. Rishuu flowers. She was sure she'd never been to that garden before, yet it was a vivid memory.

Sakura looked around. The petal was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

It was her day off. Her plan was to stay home and do nothing – she was in great need of a break from the hospital, her genin team (even they being in the middle of an imposed week off) and Kakashi's paperwork. The minute her feet touched the ground, though, she felt a longing inside her body. _What the hell?_ she thought, exasperated, sensing another difficult day ahead of her. As soon as she put on a green summer dress, she realized what was bothering her – the missing petal. For such a little thing, she was really upset about its absence. She _had_ to find that petal. Or, even better, she would find a new one. Yes. That thought felt incredibly right. She only had to find that garden and everything would be fine again.

... if only she knew where to find that garden. For all she knew, it could be anywhere in the country. She could even picture the scene: she jumping fences, trespassing private properties, frantically looking for an almost hidden plant. She had to laught at the thought. _Think, Sakura!_ Where to start looking for it? That's when it hit her. The Memorial Stone. It was a place as good as any to start her self-assigned mission, and the fact that it was where she found the petal had to be a good omen.

She just couldn't believe her luck when she saw from afar a white spot on the stone. Increasing her pace to a jog, her heart started beating faster, and it was not because of her running. Sakura stopped in front of it, gingerly raising her hand to carefully scoop the petal among her fingers. This time, she did notice that the petal was in the same exact spot it'd been the day before. Underneath it, there was a name scratched beyond recognition. Just as she touched the scratched name, the wind picked up, softly caressing her face.

_This can't be a coincidence._ She was trying to decypher the scratch when she noticed _where_ the wind was coming from. She froze. There was a very solid structure right in front of her face, yet there was where the wind blowed from. Through the stone! Tsunade's poltergeist idea didn't sound so absurd now. _Stop it; you're being irrational,_ she berated herself, while an idea formed in her mind. If the wind had brought her the petal, the wind could as well blow the petal back to where it came from. It was an unnatural notion, but nothing seemed to make sense anymore. Why not give it a try? Opening her hand, she let the wind pick up the petal.

It went right back to the scratched name.

"Okay," she said out loud, perhaps so the petal would be able to hear her. "I get it. You're showing me a name. A fellow Konoha shinobi or kunoichi, deceased in one of the last two Shinobi World Wars." All she had to do was looking for the names in the records and compare them to the names on the slab. Piece of cake. After all, it was her day off.

* * *

She should have imagined it. With all the chaos ensued by the wars, no one has been responsible for keeping record of the names on the Memorial Stone. They had just been adding whatever names they could remember _(they_ being Kami-knows-who) and that was it. Given that the place was practically abandoned, it didn't really matter. This really pissed Sakura off. Those people died for the sake of the village, for crying out loud! It was only fair that their sacrifice should be honored. Not to mention that it didn't help her with her search.

Back to her home, her mind focused on the petal, instead of the name. If she went back to the Memorial Stone the following day, would another petal be there waiting for her? By then, she had figured out that the rishuu petals had to be crucial to unravel that mystery. _Tomorrow, I will find out._

* * *

There was no petal in the stone. As she approached it, though, the petal from the day before escaped from her hand and flew by itself to the stone, unsurprisingly landing at the same spot, again.

* * *

Sakura quickly figured out that, in order to a new petal appear on the stone, the old one would have to vanish. She retraced her steps from the evening of the day when she found the first petal. What had she done to make it disappear? She had slept. The pinkette discarded that possibility – the second petal had been still there in the morning. She must have done something... Yes. She smelled the petal; fell asleep without a notice; and then woke up at the memory of the unknown garden. The night she didn't touch the petal, she didn't have trouble to sleep. Hmmm...

Once again, she took the soft petal to her nose. Its pleasant scent went up to her nostrils...

_Find me... Find me... Sakura..._

Despite herself, this time she woke up with a scream. It was starting to really freak her out. Her heart raced so hard she could hear her blood being pumped inside her blood vessels. Her breath was ragged, her limbs were paralyzed, and she absolutely refused to go back to sleep. _It knows my name. It knows who I am. _She was truly terrified.

* * *

It was hard to decide if it was a good or a bad sign the fact that she found a third petal over the same scratched name. At least, she came to an important conclusion: the petals had to be a kind of communication medium. The voice, albeit unrecognizable (she didn't even know if it belonged to a woman, or a man, or a child), still rung in her hears. Who did she have to find? The petals ought to be from someone who knew her. Which wasn't hard – by now, everyone had surely heard about her, and most of the village one day must have been healed by her hands. But why scare her, instead of just ask nicely? There was something really strange about it all. The person sending her the petals could be trying to force her into finding the one whose name was scratched; they could be trying to convince her to restore the name; the petals could be being sent by the owner of the scratched name; or it could be a prank.

Sakura fervently hoped it wasn't a prank. She was too much intrigued (and scared) to be eventually ridicularized in front of everyone. Besides, who would even do that? So she discarded that possibility. The next option was quickly abandoned, too. Ghosts weren't real. The notion itself was so absurd that she almost laughed. In order to test her other two possibilities, she would have to find out to whom the scratched name belonged.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked, more to vent her frustration than actually waiting for an answer. Her blood froze when the wind picked up the petal and nested it between her nose and her upper lip. She couldn't help but breathe in the petal, knowing by now what it would cause.

_Sakura, I need you to find me. Please. Time is running out!_

When she woke up, curled against the cold and hard stone, she didn't feel as scared as before. This whole thing was following an increasing pattern. What would come next? Sakura streched and yawned, absently looking up. Another petal. _Wow, call this instant messaging_, but before any other coherent thought could form, the petal was blowed straight into her still open mouth. The moment the petal touched her tongue, she noticed it was infused with chakra. _How come did I not notice it before?_ The chakra pulsed ever so slightly. She gasped, and it made her accidentally swallow the petal.

She was again in the small garden, but all the trees, bushes and boulders were being seen from a different angle. A lower angle. She felt it before anything else – she _was_ the rishuu plant. Or, better saying, she was one with the plant. Along with another chakra, which she thought she'd sensed before but wasn't quite sure – it could be anyone she ever healed, or battled. Her own chakra system was very sensitive and, once she got in contact with another person's chakra, she would always be able to know she'd had contact with it before. Much like the Inuzuka's noses, but on a more subtle and imprecise way. She sent a tentative pulse of chakra, trying to determine who else was there. The other chakra system responded, and she was grasping a wisp of recognition...

Sakura inhaled deeply as she opened her eyes. It was with a huge relief that she felt soft linens against her skin. Turning her head to look at her clock – 3:47 AM – she tried to assess if it was or not safe to sleep again. She wasn't one to believe in clairvoyance or any supernatural or mystic bullshit ("all pseudoscience, Ino, to the last bit of it"), but she was starting to get disturbed. And really pissed off. Couldn't whoever is doing this be more direct? That was when she realized her clock was on the wrong side of the bed – her bed? It was softer and firmer at the same time, and the linens were made of a very soft cotton, not silk. With a bad feeling, she swung her legs to the side and, surprisingly, smashed her heels on the floor. _A futon? Where in the hell am I?_ Trying her best not to panic, she slid a panel door, stepped outside, and almost landed face first on a small koi pond. Which was in the middle of a small traditional garden. With trees, bushes and boulders. And a small stone shrine. With a slender plant with white flowers. _You've got to be kidding me._


End file.
